Tools for Problem Solving

By Rick Docksai

In order to meet the challenges ahead, we’ll need less control, more distributed action, and less resistance to change.

2030: Technology That Will Change the World by Rutger van Santen, Djan Khoe, and Bram Vermeer. Oxford University Press. 2010. 295 pages. $29.95.

Technology could contribute to solving many of the world’s problems, ranging from resource shortages to financial crises, state three Dutch scientists in 2030: Technology That Will Change the World. Citing interviews with researchers from health, information technology, energy, foreign policy, and other fields, they identify an array of innovations that could improve life across the globe.

The authors—chemist Rutger van Santen and electro-optical communication professor Djan Khoe, both of Eindhoven University, with science journalist Bram Vermeer—and the experts they cite express agreement on several fundamentals: that the world’s global systems are growing more interconnected, that information systems must become more adept at gathering information from the ground level and rapidly responding to it, and that humans must overcome their reticence to change.

“We need to pursue more flexible solutions so that technology can serve us more effectively in a fast-changing environment. And we must also come to grips with complexity itself,” the authors write.

Some promising research areas, according to the authors, include the following:

• Water management. Droughts worldwide will worsen in the absence of new methods to reduce stress on water systems. Potential remedies include drought-resistant crops, improved irrigation, and water purification and desalination systems that operate at the neighborhood or household scale.
• Energy efficiency. Humans already consume the earth’s resources more than 1.5 times faster than the planet can replenish them—and the deficit is widening. Some hope, however, lies in more energy-efficient buildings and household appliances.
  Prototype alternative-energy systems also show promise. Solar cells made with conducting polymers would be lighter, more flexible, and easier to manufacture than present-day solar cells, for example. Nuclear breeder reactors would provide massive amounts of energy with minimal nuclear waste. And hydrogen could be a practical fuel if combined with other, denser gases.
• Medicine. In the future, medical scanning software will process more images in less time. Also, the scanners will analyze the images and advise physicians on follow-up tests and treatments.
  Cognitive decline may be inevitable for some people at advanced ages, but they may better cope by using technological applications such as cookers that turn themselves off or kettles that protect users against accidental burnings, for example.
• Manufacturing. Microplants—whole factories the size of a computer chip—will construct devices “to a precision of a few micrometers,” all with much less energy and waste than traditional manufacturing processes. Computer chips cannot get much smaller, but they can become far more capable. “Smart” computer chips will be aware of their environments and act upon them. Applications could include brain-wave monitors for patients who have epilepsy. The monitor would recognize an oncoming seizure and avert it.
• Communications. Numbers of radio stations, TV stations, and mobile-phone and satellite connections are increasing, but room on the electromagnetic spectrum is limited. Networks will operate better if regulations governing bandwidth are loosened and control delegated to local units, the authors argue. Communications will further benefit from new systems that broadcast with less spectrum and from software-defined radio sets whose components change frequencies and perform upgrades automatically in accordance with changing airwave transmissions.
• Finances. Major economic crashes are often preventable if market observers spot market instabilities before they spiral out of control. Use of computer simulations and other new network science tools would enable economists to better understand market mechanisms. Computers could even perform trades for people: “Automated” trading would eliminate unnecessary trading and lower market risk.
• Conflict resolution. Civil conflicts are more numerous, and nuclear weapons are an ever-present danger. Satellites and environmental sampling can help keep the peace, however, by enforcing disarmament agreements.

Foreign policies have to evolve, too, according to the authors. Governments need to pursue greater integration, economic cooperation, and interdependence. In addition, every measure that nations take to use less oil and electricity will engender a more peaceful world.

The world and the challenges it faces are both becoming increasingly complex, the authors acknowledge. They are hopeful, however, that if humans expand their capabilities to cooperatively gather information, analyze it, and act upon it, they will thrive.

“Protecting the future of our industry is not about securing the status quo but fostering the dynamics needed to adapt to changes as they arise,” they write.

In 2030, the authors have provided an incisive report about the upcoming frontiers of modern scientific research. Readers will find this book an approachable guide to the new applications that we might realistically see come into use in the decades ahead.